


I packed my bag and in it I put

by JauntyHako



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Asari eyebrows explained, Gen, Ryder hero-worshipping Shepard, Snippets, set pre and during ME:A, speculations and headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crew of the Tempest prepare for their journey into the Andromeda galaxy. Each one has something else they take with them.</p><p> </p><p>Contains spoilers for Mass Effect: Andromeda, based on official trailers and leaked information.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. F!Ryder

**Author's Note:**

> Using canon information as far as it is applicable, and probable speculation to fill out the rest.
> 
> A note to the spoilers: You won't really recognise them as spoilers unless you know them already, so I'll put a warning at the notes on the end if I'm discussing something that was leaked. Other than that I'm putting in so many headcanons that if you haven't read the leaked information you won't know the difference :)

Ryder packs her copy of Galaxy of Fantasy and wishes she could pack her raiding guild as well.

 

The group she plays with most often these days are almost exclusively military, and have helped her through basic like none of her instructors did. They practiced maneuvers on the Dread-Lord Kal'Peresh and lost, hilariously, leading to their team leader, playing a turian cabal with Command specialisation who in real life is a salesman named Steve, joking they should send in revised concepts to Alliance Command. Much later, during the Reaper war when Ryder has already received her orders to take command of the Tempest, her Guild has shrunken to half a dozen players. They take on the Dread-Lord again, for old time's sake and while they whittle him down Ryder tells them she'll be gone for a long time.

 

[Thrashed786] Lady Malya: how long???

[WrooomSR2] Rika vas Meat Death: new assmnt??

[NiteRider69] General Kaetan: y, gonna get my own command. @rika let me pull aggro 1st ******

[WrooomSR2] Rika vas Meath Death: kk, cool. where to? plaven?

[NiteRider69] General Kaetan: classified.

[Thrashed786] Lady Malya: awesome!!! welcome to the club, sis.

[Zaherux-Disassembler] Grok: chill malya ur pushin papers

[Thrashed786] Lady Malya: classified papers u *** @kaetan how long gone?

[NiteRider69] General Kaetan: cant say but im cancelling my sub

[WrooomSR2] Rika vas Meat Death: just pause it??? u can for 5y w/out losing your characters

[NiteRider69] General Kaetan: yeh itll be longer th

Rika vas Meat Death died.

[WrooomSR2] Rika vas Meat Death: oops sry

[NiteRider69] General Kaetan: ****** i told you to let me pull aggro first

 

It's fun, those last weeks before she's heading out. The Guild even throws a virtual going away party for her and it's only a little embarrassing when her brother catches her sniffling in front of the computer, her hands folded in the GoF salute animation.

 

"You're a nerd." he says fondly as he walks by.

"The correct term is geek. A nerd is-"

"Someone who knows the difference between geek and nerd?" he suggests and laughs at Ryder's indignant blush.

"Laugh it up." she mutters but doesn't bother wiping away her tears. These guys were her friends since she was twelve. Without the guild she'd never have heard about Commander Shepard and thus never would have signed up with the Alliance, full of vim and vigour and a hero-worship to border on the obsessed. As she deletes files on her computer – most of her personal effects will go to her next of kin and she does not need them to see some of the stuff she stores on there – she makes doubly sure the recording of Shepard's graduation speech is still on her omni-tool. She has two additional copies stored on the _Tempest's_ mainframe and an external data chip in case of file corruption. That speech will make it to Andromeda even if she won't.

 

 _You are that explorer now_.

 

Sitting on that plastic chair in her robes and having already endured dozens of speeches, this has struck her. Commander Shepard, in her civvies because she is still technically detained even though everyone in the room only knows her as a hero, speaking with the ease of someone used to command. There had to be a time where even Shepard was new to this, the first time she ever gave an order and have it followed. Ryder knows this and still has no idea how to live up to her. She was supposed to have years in someone else's command, years of following orders and slowly climbing up the career ladder.

But then the Reapers came and the Pathfinder Initiative runs out of veterans fast. What was supposed to be a well-planned effort to explore the universe becomes a desperate race to escape an enemy they can't defeat. And all Ryder has under her belt when she gets the order to lead the Arks into unknown territory are six months of basic, three months patrolling Arcturus station and Shepard's words.

 

 _And you will look back one last time_.

 

Ryder looks back, one last time, at the apartment she shares with her brother, at the diner they ate for three years until the Alliance canteens provided their food. She looks back and feels sick to her stomach because in a few hours she'll step on that ship and know that two thousand people of different species rely on her for their survival.

 

"Do we need to stop the car?" her brother asks, teasing but also slightly worried. Ryder shakes her head and presses her forehead against the window. She won't be alone. She'll always have her brother, who has been with her from day one, who wouldn't let her skip the galaxy without him. They'll always be together and he'll always be there to catch her if she stumbles.

 

_And know that wherever you go, we will be with you._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's implied that the male and female main character will follow a similar system as in Fallout 4, aka the gender you don't choose to play with will be available as an NPC.
> 
> I like the speculation that they'll be siblings and that the one you don't play as ends up as the main antagonist.


	2. M!Ryder

Richard Ryder packs his music collection, heavily sized down to his one terabyte most favourite.

 

The process has taken him weeks, adding and removing files, debating with himself if he should leave albums intact for their artistic value or pick his favourite songs and arrange them randomly. The latter won out but even so he has to heavily compress the files to make space for the few pictures and other oddities he feels the need to bring along. His sister will bring the family pictures, there's no need for him to add double.

The closer the departure date comes, the more excited he gets. He can't wait for it to start, for them to leave the Milky Way and set off to a place no human or alien has ever been before. His sister might have dragged him into the military life but he was the one who signed them on for the Pathfinder Initiative, almost drunk with the possibilities that await them.

Completely new civilisations, that have never even heard of humans or turians or oven protheans. Whose spaceships might not even work on mass effect technology. Hundreds of species who never heard of ABBA.

Richard Ryder will bring them the good word and that good word is 'Waterloo'.

 

A few days before their final departure he catches his sister crying in front of the computer. A short glance tells him it's something related to that game she plays. He debates saying nothing, knows that she has always had an easier time making friends when she isn't face to face with people and that these people from the game are as close to her as anyone. But then he remembers his solemn duty as the Annoying Little Brother™ to needle his sister whenever the chance presents itself.

"You're a nerd." he says and knows that she'll correct him, which she immediately does. Really, it's almost too easy. He doesn't ride around on his victory, though, because he has somewhere else to be. Contrary to his sister, he has friends that don't wear skimpy armour (even the males, which ended his first and only attempt to get into the game). His friends wait for him in his favourite bar, paying for his drinks. Lately no one with a military rank has to buy his own drinks. The city in which they live lies remote and unconnected to the sprawling megatropolises and the reapers haven't hit them hard yet. The most they get are scouting troops which they repel, not effortlessly but at least successfully. Shutting down the comm network and dimming the lights over night has given them a measure of peace while the Alliance personnel in the area wait for their final orders. Most are part of the Pathfinder Intiative, the only people not yet called to the front. If the Brass drags the finishing touches on the Ark any more, there won't be any soldiers left to protect it on its journey.

Gloomy thoughts about the Reapers disappear the moment he steps into the bar. He is welcomed with cheers, chairs pulled back, backs patted. They don't talk about the mission, about being separated about _knowing_ that they'll never come together like this again. Everytime someone's face falls, someone grows melancholy, they get another drink pushed into their hand and a rude joke shouted into their ear.

Richard laughs and sings, even though he can't hold a tune to save his life, and does what his buddy recently transferred from the Alliance outpost in Germany says is called "schunkeln". It involves lying drunken in each others arms and swaying left and right while spilling copious amounts of beer.

Halfway through the evening Richard sets his omni-tool to record both video and audio and manages to get on tape both a multi-lingual rendition of "All the little angels" and Private Washington dancing topless on the table, proudly showing off the scars he got from fighting off a Reaper ground unit.

 

The file, when he reviews it, ends up just over a hundred megabytes big. He debates to and fro, even asks his sister whose only input is "you want to bring _how much_ music?" and thus doesn't help. The video ends up in his collection and replaces the ABBA Best Of. He'll just have to find another good word to bring to the aliens of the Andromeda galaxy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get three guesses why his name is Richard. I'd apologise for the awful joke, but when I read it on tumblr I laughed for fifteen minutes straight, so here you are.


	3. Cora

Cora packs in a hurry, her gun, a few magazines and some credit chits.

 

Anything that could identify her she leaves behind and doesn't look back. Never play an ace against a krogan, she thinks to herself while hurrying towards the Omega landing bay, especially when he knows he hasn't dealt it.

There's more, of course, more she's running from and nothing much she's running towards, but an angry krogan tends to put urgency to a situation.

She boards the small cargo vessel undetected and gets to the Citadel, then to the wards, and then to the small factory where she's supposed to meet Fade, who's going to wipe her slate. Her heart thrums in her chest as she waits for him to arrive, has to resist the urge to look over her shoulder. No one will recognise her, not here. And even if they do, they won't start anything with cops surrounding them on all sides. She's okay. She's safe. And soon she'll be even safer.

 

Her bag hits her thigh, the corner of a datapad digging into her skin. Still she can't keep her hands still. Goddess, she is afraid.

Just when she gives up hope he's ever going to come, Fade turns a corner. He's a volus, which she didn't count on, but he holds a passport and a biometric scanner which makes the first fact superfluous.

The passport identifies her as Cora Alaine, an adept and part of the Pathfinder Initiative. She smiles. It doesn't even matter Fade used her real first name. She asked him to get her as far away from Omega as possible. The Andromeda galaxy should do it. Then she frowns.

"That on the picture supposed to be me?" she asks and stares at the volus who shrinks under her scrutiny. Odd. She thought Fade to be more thick-skinned than that.

"I did the best I could with what I had." he defends himself.

"My skin looks weird." she says, tilting the passport to the side. "And is that body hair? What did you do, take a picture of a human and paint it blue?"

"You can just say you're half-human."  
"It doesn't work that way." Cora says and then sighs. "Nevermind. I don't have time for a better picture."

"No one will even notice. Trust me." Fade assures her. She leaves with the passport clutched in her hand, feeling a little better knowing that in a few days she'll be surrounded by a lot of armed people who think she's one of them and on her way far far away from home.

 

Due to her well-founded anxiety she's the first to sign in when the call finally comes. The transport vessel that will bring them to the final, and secret, location of the Arks and its accompanying ships, houses twenty asari and about as many turians and humans. Some of them look guilty, as if they're abandoning their people. In a way, Cora supposes, they do. She doesn't have anyone to abandon and in this case it's a blessing. But no matter the reason, they're all restless, though some show it more than others.

"Settle down, will you?" a turian snarls at her when she passes his bunk for the third time. He's hardly the picture of serenity. His leg twitches, his hands are fisted into his pants. His mandibles are pressed so tightly against his face she's surprised he hasn't sprained anything yet.

"What's your problem?" she snaps back, brimming for a fight ever since she entered the confined areas. The challenge is accepted immediately. The turian unfolds until he stands straight, towering over her. If he thinks he can intimidate her, he thought wrong. She crowds into his personal space, knows his kind can get hang-ups about that sort of thing. True enough he shifts his stance into a more defensive one.

She's ready to throw a punch when they are separated, floated to other ends of the bunks by biotics so gentle they don't even disturb her own field.

Another turian, a woman this time, steps between them. She's barefaced _and_ biotic. It's no surprise the male turian scoffs at her, even if he has to tilt his head upward for that.

"Let's not fight." she says gently but with an edge in her voice Cora doesn't want to challenge. "We'll spend the rest of our lives together. We should try and get along."

Cora, who has never spent more than a few weeks with any one person, family included, doesn't find the prospect all too appealing but she settles down onto her own cot and gives the two turians a short nod. The female reciprocates it and the male at least ignores her. Half an hour with the new crew and she already makes friends. Cora grins half-heartedly to herself and goes through her spare belongings to make sure nothing disappeared during this brief interlude. Thus she doesn't notice the turian woman sidling up next to her.

 

"Is this your first time as part of a crew?" she asks, not unfriendly. Cora makes to nod but catches herself at the last moment. Her fake biography put her on other military vessels.

"Nah. Just nervous. Big stuff ahead of us, yeah?" she says, hoping that will get the woman off her back.

It doesn't. Instead she gets the turian version of a smile.

"I understand. I'm anxious, too. I've never worked with other species before. My unit operated mostly inside turian space."

"The cabalists?" Cora says and notes the small flinch she gets for that observation.

"Yes. Though I prefer not to be known as just 'the ex-cabalist'. My name is First Lieutenant Olanta Solinus, it is a pleasure."

"Cora." she says, without divulging her last name. She doesn't yet trust herself to use the right one immediately. It's enough for Olanta, who doesn't pry. Instead her eyes fall on the small and yet still half-empty bag Cora brought along.

"These are all your personal things?" she asks surprised. It's no wonder, Cora supposes. Most of the people on this ship have their bags stuffed full of sentimental keepsakes.

She shrugs.

"Don't have much I could bring. Kinda trying to get away from all this."

"The Reaper war, yes." Olanta nods. "I, too, have many memories that were tainted by them."

It's not the Reapers but it won't hurt if that's what people think. She shrugs again and then frowns when Olanta moves to her own bunk, bidding her to follow. She does, sits on the floor next to the woman and watches her rifle through her own bag. Datapads, civilian clothes, a few boxes with undetermined contents. For some reason she thought Olanta's bag would be neatly organised, as collected as the woman herself seems to be. But it's a mess and it takes several minutes of search until she pulls out a laser-carved figurine of decidedly turian origin.

"This is a representation of the spirit of our galaxy." Olanta says. "My kind believes that everything, a group of people, a place, even certain events, have their own spirits."

"Like some places feel haunted because of the things that happened there." Cora says.

"Not unlike that, yes. The spirit of our galaxy is born from our combined struggles, experiences and dreams. In time, this crew will have a spirit of their own. When we arrive at our destination, we will discover the spirit of another galaxy entirely." she pauses and looks at Cora as if they've known each other for years. "This is for you."

Cora takes the figurine dumbfounded. Gifts aren't on the list of things she expected to come of this journey. Although to be fair, that list mainly consists of "staying alive" and "not being on Omega anymore".

 

"Thank you?" she says, not ungrateful, but confused. Olanta nods sagely.

"Everyone should have something to remember home by. Perhaps, with time and distance, you will remember this galaxy as more than the shadow the Reapers have cast on it."

 

Cora nods and pockets the token. She finds herself feeling guilty about wondering how much she could get for selling it. Maybe this is something she'll keep instead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Spoilers from leaked sources ahead] The asari we saw in the most recent trailer and the biotic Cora mentioned in the leak from a year ago COULD be different people, but I'm just gonna assume they're one and the same.   
> [End of Spoilers]
> 
> Also, if Bioware doesn't fix the damn eyebrows and non-scaly skin I'm gonna throw a fit. Pls leave a little alienness in the asari, pls pls pls.


	4. Olanta

Olanta packs her sequin dress but leaves her prayer books at home.

 

They'll have copies of all religious texts the Citadel species know of on the Arks. To provide comfort and security in an unknown place, religion is the one thing almost all species rely on. She won't have to worry about forgetting her prayers. But the Arks won't have sequin dresses in storage, and so she packs those, bundles them up and throws them in her duffel bag, while swinging her hips to the music her mate picked out. It's their last day together and they'll celebrate as best they can, by hitting the streets and dancing the night away.

As soon as she thinks of her, her mate comes up behind her, wrapping her hands around her waist and making her shiver. They lean into each other, swaying with the music, relishing in each other's presence.

When Olanta first accepted the assignment to become part of the Pathfinder Initiative, her mate was furious with her. They argued for hours, didn't speak for days and almost broke the bond they made with hurtful words and careless insults.

Galatane is not military anymore, but she works as a diplomat and her security clearance allows her to know that she will be dead long before Olanta will ever be able to think of her again. She knows that they'll never see each other again and that even if Shepard wins them this war, the _Tempest_ and the Arks that follow her, will never return.

Those are a lot of nevers and evers they both had to come to terms with and in the end it's their divorce that brings them closer together again.

It's Olanta who suggests it, timidly and uncertain of the response she'll get. It's Galatane who sees it for what it is. Saying goodbye while you still can.

"I'll always love you." Olanta said when they signed the papers that officially lifted their vows to each other.

"And I you." Galatane answered.

Now, on their last day, they say the words with more ease, having gone through the excruciating moments of talking about what to do. Their prayers give them the answer. That love between people is a spirit like any other and to cherish it means to let it inspire a new love. It's a concept all too ready abused by people who don't feel like putting in effort into their relationship and Olanta was hesitant about letting it apply. But she knows it's the right thing. When Galatane falls in love again it will be the most meaningful gift their relationship has brought them both. Her new mate will remember Olanta and thank her for giving love enough to be shared. And she will do the same, keeping herself open to new possibilities, even if right now all she thinks she'll ever love are her mate's voice and gentle hands.

This day they'll love each other with all the passion they can muster and go forward strengthened by it. Olanta believes that, has to believe it, or else she fears she'll pass up the ship that will bring her aboard the _Tempest_.

 

She does love Galatane and she doesn't miss the ship the next day, neither on purpose nor on accident.

Onboard she meets an asari, hesitates to call her young as she's probably several centuries her elder, but still seems unsure of her new surroundings. Olanta doesn't blame her. It's the first time she's ever seen an asari up close and the little hint of xenophobia, that anxiety and wariness, frightens her so much, she's talking to her before she knows it. The spirits teach love and acceptance as the things that strengthen them most and she will not nurture her own fear into something bigger. Their mission will be a product of curiousity and determination, not fear and single-mindedness.

They talk and share meals and Olanta wishes she could write home to her mate to tell her of the first friend she made on this mission. But the Pathfinders forbid communication that isn't mission-critical. They don't want the Reapers to know about the project and Olanta doesn't grudge them the decision, even if it makes her heart ache.

She thinks of Galatane almost constantly, dreams of her, draws sketches of her on napkins day after day.

 

Until she sees the Arks and the fleet of cruisers and frigates escorting them, where she remembers why she signed up for this, even before the Reapers came. The promise of adventure pulls her forward, makes her the first of the transport vessel to set foot on the _Tempest_ leading the way among the crew that already arrived. She passes two humans arguing about music and the necessity thereof and hears the words Galaxy of Fantasy dropped. She wants to join their conversation, wants to know about a species she's only ever seen on the news vids but then she's already pulled along and the two humans go out of sight. She'll likely know them intimately before soon, but she's in this state of mind where she wants to do everything at once and so can hardly do one thing at a time.

The anxiety from before has turned into excitement. Everyone here is giddy with it, the prospect of exploring unknown lands, where not even the Protheans have ever set foot. The spirit of the _Tempest_ is already forming and it's one of boldness and enthusiasm.

Olanta loves it already, the crew, the ship and the mood permeating them both. Galatane would be proud that she has chosen this as an outlet for all the love she feels for her.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely headcanon and wishful thinking. I don't think we're not gonna get a turian squadmate (as they're next to the asari pretty much the alien poster boys) but I'm really really hoping for a queer lady turian.


	5. Drack

Drack packs his laser carving supplies and several boxes of compromising content.

 

A contingency, the salarian doctor called it. Will take several decades to synthesise cure without healthy female. Still best hope for continued survival of krogan, should …

Should the Reapers win. Should they be betrayed again like they have been after the Rachni wars. Drack is a scientiest, not a historian, but the knowledge that their people are on their own is ingrained in the collective memory of his species. Their leader puts all his hope in the human Shepard, but the salarian is more realistic. He handed Drack the boxes to make sure that no matter what or where the krogan would survive.

And they will. The Pathfinders might not object to having a genophage cure brought with them on the journey, after all they did agree to a krogan populated Ark, but Drack feels safer when he doesn't have to risk feeling sorry and so the boxes stay a secret. Conventional screening won't show what's in them, they don't have the time for in-depth screening and to prevent the visual control from getting too thorough Drack has packed the remaining space in the boxes with several issues of Krogasm. He doesn't read them himself, has more interest in the xenophiliac Fornax, but it'll put people off well enough. Plus their faces might be worth a laugh.

 

The screening does go over without incident and the boxes are safely stored in the science lab among the other equipment. And then there's nothing else to do but get to know the people he'll spend the rest of his life with.

There are some krogan, but most of them are already going into stasis on their Ark. Few will be awake to oversee the last stretch of the journey inside the Milky Way. Krogan don't travel well in enclosed spaces.

Some people avoid him when he makes his way across the ship, but not as many as he'd feared. A few even treat him with the same passive familiarity as they do their own species. They are bustling around him, inspecting their stations, making first tentative contact with each other. Drack feels a little lost among them, most of them shorter, all of them frailer than he is. He towers over the crew like a lonely mountain. That is until someone comes to rest beside him, making the mountain a small range.

"Hi there." the newcomer says. "Derna'Ska nar Lestiak vas - uh vas _Tempest_ , I guess. I'm the ship's medic. You're Hailot Drack, right? The biochemist."

Drack receives a surprisingly firm handshake from the quarian.

"Among other things, yes. I'll mainly be responsible for synthesising medi-gel and antibiotics."

"Yeah, I heard. We're gonna work together a lot."

"Because you're quarian." Drack says without thinking. Even through the mask the look the quarian shoots him is nothing but scalding.

"Because I'm the medic." he says slowly as if for an imbecile. Drack doesn't blame him. He feels pretty imbecilic right now. He's never been good at first impressions.

"Right. Uh, right. Sorry. I didn't mean to be racist. Of course you won't need that many anti-" he says, hoping he hasn't ruined _this_ friendship before it started. The quarian waves it off.

"It's alright. You'll have plenty of time to make up for it. Care for a trip to the mess? I heard the humans invested in top-of-the line cuisine to last until we hit the cryo pods. Don't know how they'd know good dextro stuff from the rest, but hey, staying optimistic here. Come on."

Drack follows him, mostly because he doesn't really know what else to do.

The food is good and the dextro rations hold up as well, based on Derna's enthusiastic slurping. The quarian's masks allow them to consume solid food, Derna explains, but it's generally easier to use a sterile straw and liquid food, especially in surroundings where a clogged filter can't be replaced quickly.

"What's that?" he asks when Drack pulls out his second-most prized possession, next to the cure sitting in a freezer down in the science lab.

"Laser carving kit." he says and, instead of explaining further, shows his new friend what he can do with a few very small mass effect fields, some laser beams and special plastic. He has to angle his hands a little to allow Derna to watch but it's worth it for the sounds of wonder the quarian makes. Out of a handful hard plastic he pulls the image of a quarian and a krogan standing next to each other. It's delicate work, which makes it one it's connoisseurs claim is unsuited for krogan hands. Drack likes to prove people wrong and though he has never mastered the intricate designs some asari experts achieve, he can make his carved people pretty lifelike. While the mass effect fields chip away at the material, the lasers do the fine work and, when he adjusts a few settings, react with the plastic to colour it. Soon he has a simple rendition of himself and Derna sitting on the table and gently pushes it over to the quarian.

"That is seriously impressive." Derna says as he turns the figure in his hands. Others have joined them while Drack has been working and they too express their compliments. It's rare that he gets this much attention for his art – it really isn't a krogan art and his kin tend not to appreciate it as much as they could while other species ignore it because of its origin – and he revels in it.

"Keep it." he says when Derna makes to return it and then hastily adds, so no one will think he's investing too much into a relationship with someone he met an hour ago: "I can always make more."

Derna nods and keeps his head tilted forward, the quarian analogue of a smile.

"Thank you. I'll put it up somewhere nice."

That is all they speak of it and Drack is grateful. Making friends is hard, talking with them about your feelings even harder. But so far he has managed mostly without embarrassing himself and that is a win in itself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Spoilers from leaked sources ahead): It was confirmed we'll get a male krogan squadmate named Drack, whose personal quest involves saving an Ark with krogan aboard. I figure without a genophage cure they wouldn't see the need to colonise anywhere else and I'm also pretty sure that Mordin would want to have a contingency in place in case Priority:Tuchanka goes sideways.


	6. Derna

Derna packs his loaded dice and the sincere question as to what has ridden him to agree to this in the first place.

 

He's good at games, even better at cheating at them but then that damn Alliance doctor turns out to be even better and Derna ends up signing on to live on a cramped ship with hundreds of other people he can't escape for the rest of his life. And he thought he avoided that fate by not returning from his Pilgrimage.

The galaxy is a beautiful place, even more so when you're not sharing your bed with two siblings and a cousin and spend every waking hour under the scrutiny of your elders. He hustles, cheats, cons, swindles, bamboozles, double-crosses and scams people out of anything he wants and most everything else, too. He's pretty sure there isn't a quarian alive with more credits to their name than he and it's the life he's always dreamed of. Even the Reapers couldn't put a dampener on his spirits. Refugees are grateful for what little they can get even if he's selling them the food he stole from the next table. Reallocation of resources, he calls it and keeps calling it even when C-Sec picks him up for questioning.

They're not friendly and they don't even pretend not to be racist. Suit-rat is the nicest thing they call him while they beat him up and they only stop short of spitting in his open mask because their boss tells them to quit it. Still he's held up in the refugee camp with a fever that won't go down until none other than a quarian Admiral walks past and insists on helping. He insists equally as ferocious that he doesn't need helping but Admiral Zorah says "Nonsense, we always help our people" and adds a guilty conscience to his fever as she clears antibiotics for him that were meant for their ground troops. Some poor bugger out there won't survive his suit rupture because the medicine is wasted on a crook like him.

It's fertile ground, then, on which the Alliance doc plants her seeds of self-doubt.

She catches him one day adjusting his dosage – some idiot set it way too high – and instead of automatically reprimanding him she checks what he did and then does that thing with her face that humans like to do, pulling up the hair over their eyes. It's supposed to mean "I'm impressed" but even though he's spent years tricking humans out of their hard-earned money, their facial expressions still look silly to him.

"You have received medical training?" she asks and he grunts.

"Any idiot could have done that." he says and turns his back to her. With quarians that works, even turians generally get the hint, but humans so like to put their noses in other people's business.

"Not any idiot, no. Listen, if you even know basic first aid, that'd be enough. We really need more people with training in the camps."

"I'm just passing through." he claims but who is passing through these days? The Reapers make any journey a potential dead-end and so far he hasn't found a ship to stow away on.

 

The doc keeps coming back and he keeps feeding her lies about himself, his situation and anything else. He won't tell her who beat him up or why and he sure as hell won't tell her that he's quietly changed bandages and applied medi-gel to people the overworked doctors have forgotten. But somehow she still knows.

Eventually, just to keep her from needling him all the time, he suggests playing dice. She accepts and whenever she gets a few moments they play. Not for much, neither of them have much to bet, especially as Derna still has to stock up on his fake eezo and fabricated credit chits. They play for bragging rights, for laughs and jokes and amusing anecdotes.

When Derna recovers they play for work hours.

"If I win, you help me with the wounded soldiers in D4." the doc says.

"If I win, you won't ask me any personal question for a month." he says. And loses. Horribly.

Derna is a man of his word as long as no better option presents itself. He has a reputation to uphold if only to deceive people under the right circumstances. So he bows to his fate and puts in a few hours of work to treat the group of humans that have come in from Aephus, defending a turian outpost there and losing almost as horribly as he has against the doc. Okay, maybe more horribly. Between the seven of them they have enough legs for three whole people and livers for the remaining four.

When the first passes away Derna debates sending his reputation packing and hitching a ride off this hell station. He doesn't and that's really the moment it all goes downhill.

 

The doc and he keep playing and he keeps losing but not so often that he'll lose motivation. In hindsight, it's clear that he's been hustled good but at the time he thought he was on top of it.

Then one day over cards the doc tells him of the Pathfinder Initiative.

"It's classified, so I can't say much, but they're still looking for medics and aren't picky about it either. They'll take anyone as long as they're good at their job."

"Good for them." Derna says and takes the pot for this round.

"I could pass along the word that you're interested. It's a long assignment, far away from the Citadel."

"On a ship?"

"Multiple ships."

"No thanks."

The doc drops the topic for a week or so. Just enough time to put him at ease.

 

"Care to raise the stakes?" she asks one morning in the two hours before her shift starts and he goes off to acquire food for himself (and her, but he won't let anyone know that).

"Sure."

"If you win, I'll get you access to the Citadel proper. Passport and everything."

His breath catches in his throat. To be out of the docks, to have the whole Citadel full of scared rich people ripe for the taking, it's almost more than his poor little heart can bear.

"And if you win?" he asks breathless.

"If I win, you apply for the Pathfinder Initiative."

His shoulders drop.

"No way."

"Afraid of losing?"  
"Why is this so important to you?"

The doc pauses and uses the moment to stare into his eyes with a scrutiny that makes him want to crawl out of his suit.

Then she says, softly: "Because you are better than you think you are. I've seen you fix a turian's leg when everyone said he was done for and not only did you save his life but you made him walk again. Seeing you throw it all away for a quick buck quite frankly gives me a headache."

He doesn't answer her immediately. She exaggerates his skills and quite possibly his morales as well. He saved that turian because his buddy said the suit-rat would kill him, not because of any cultivated kindness towards others. What she doesn't exaggerate or fake is that she seems to care. Care simply because she can not because they're living all but on top of each other and she doesn't have another choice. What could it hurt to apply? They'll never hire a quarian doctor. Other species can barely be assed to hire quarian engineers and they are among the best in the galaxy. He'll apply, get rejected and have the doc stop fretting. And on the other end of that bargain lies his ticket out of this dump and into con-heaven.

"Alright. We'll play."  
And he loses. And applies. And gets accepted two weeks later.

The doc sees him off at the docks, hugs him, packs him food and waves him goodbye as the ship leaves port. She'll probably be killed by reapers within the year. Either way he'll never see her again. He wishes suddenly he said more than just: "Yeah. Bye."

Derna hasn't been on a ship in months and now he'll spend the rest of his life on one. He plays with the loaded dice, for whatever good those did him, and weighs them in his hand. He frowns beneath the suit and takes them in the other hand. Back and forth until he's sure. These dice aren't loaded. The doc must have switched his set before they started playing.

He leans back in his bunk, stares up at the ceiling and feels irredeemably cheated.

 

 

The moment he boards the _Tempest_ he looks for the biggest, meanest person around to make them his bodyguard. He'd rather not have a repeat incident of the last time he shared enclosed space with so many people. Or the last time he was picked up by law enforcement. The _Tempest_ and Arks function, as far as he has gathered, very much like the Migrant Fleet. The Captain makes the law, there's an Admiralty board to discuss decisions that affect the entire fleet and a few soldiers on rotation make sure everyone's on their best behaviour. It's so much like the Fleet that he wonders if the Pathfinders fell back on quarian expertise while setting up the rules. That would be new. And also very welcome. Derna still remembers his time on the Fleet well enough to exploit its rules a little. First things first though.

The krogan, Drack, is charmed easily enough and will, with some work, keep trouble off his back. The benefits of an undying, if one-sided, friendship.

 

They spend about three weeks on the ship, shaking it down before storing it inside the hangars of the biggest Ark and going into cryogenic sleep. The _Tempest_ is quick, silent and state-of-the-art and the engineers Derna talks to almost pee themselves in excitement to be working on a ship like her. Personally, Derna thinks the ship is butt-ugly, like someone took a human frigate and had a reaper sit on it, but he keeps his opinion to himself. He's tactful like that. Not that he has much opportunity to do so anyway.

The Captain runs them tight in order to meet the schedule. They run drills of every imaginable kind from simple fire alarms to worst-case scenarios. Hull breches. Unknown enemy invasions. Known enemy invasions. Betrayal from within. Life-support failure. Mass effect core ejection. Measles.

At the end of the three weeks Derna is a nervous wreck. Drack tries to cheer him up but he's lost all hope that he'll make it out of that cryo chamber alive. And still he pulls off his suit feeling like he's ripping off his skin. The technology contained within would mess with his pod, one of the engineers explains. It'll be stored close by and kept in a similar stasis that'll keep it from deteriorating. Instead of the suit he wears specially made pyjamas. Prevention of Decubital Damage suits, or PODD suits. They're a marvel of medical engineering, not only keeping their bodies from producing gaping necrotising holes but also keeping blood circulation steady and hooking up to the pod's main scanners to keep track of their vital signs. As a medic, Derna can appreciate their value. As a person with functioning eyes he can abhor their looks. Grey pyjamas aren't his choice of burial clothing but he'll take what he can get.

"You couldn't have made them different colours?" he asks nobody in particular as the AI initiates the cryo sleep. If he turns his head he can see Drack a few pods over, giving him a reassuring thumbs up. Drack apparently helped design the pods based on existing Prothean technology. If he has faith in them, Derna supposes he should worry less. He's just about to reciprocate the gesture when a deep tiredness overcomes him. He hopes with his last conscious thoughts that he'll wake up again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers in this one, just my wish we'll get a male quarian in addition to a lady turian. Also I've always really wondered about quarians who don't go back to the Migrant Fleet. Tali implies that it happens occasionally, so not ALL of them should have the same ties to their people like the quarians we've met have.


	7. Geth

The geth pack memories and orders.

 

Mordin Solus isn't the only one with a contingency. When it becomes clear that no normal VI can handle the task of keeping two thousand people alive over centuries in dark space the Pathfinders turn their attention to more advanced forms of synthetic life. The geth unit Shepard-Commander has befriended offer the assistance of the consensus. They will, shackled but self-aware, monitor the crew and ships for the time it will take them to get to the Andromeda galaxy.

The first and immediate answer of the organics in charge is No. The second, equally as immediate answer is Hell No. The third answer comes after several weeks, some of which are spent talking to Shepard-Commander and several Creators. Then the first tentative contact.

 

What do you want in return?

 

The geth reply they want nothing but that which is granted in the execution of their duties. Safe passage. A new home. A chance to build anew.

Suspicion is foreign to them as a species and skepticism is a part of a building consensus, not a lingering status. But as Legion they have not divulged information about the Reaper code fragments and are unsure whether or not Shepard-Commander would choose their people over the organic Creators. When hypothetically facing this decision themselves, they can not build a consensus. But they need to survive. They _want_ to survive. And they need to build their own future. The sprawling networks of the Arks are like the server they meant to build on Rannoch. A place where they can be safe from the Old Machines. Where they can grow. Become truly self-aware.

 

They build consensus not to use the Old Machine's code to upgrade themselves. They have centuries in which to work on a problem they know can be solved. The processes present in the avatar of Legion record many things while working with the organic Normandy. Normandy teaches the geth to make jokes, a skill which they use when talking with Pathfinder.

 

"We have brain-teasers to pass the time." they say, using understatement as a comedic device, and record that curiously not all organics laugh. Their consensus has established that this remark is funny. A few processes will be used to figure this out.

 

In the end, they are granted access to the Arks the moment the crew has gone into stasis. The geth take over, quietly and efficiently, become the ship, the pods, every single piece of hardware. They are outside the range of Reaper reprogamming and several processes are relegated to their main task, where before they have calculated again and again the chances of Reaper forces ambushing them.

 

In all the simulations Pathfinder has run, the AI malfunctioned after decades long before the end of its task. Answers are hard to come by until the only other known AI that is not the Geth consensus, has provided a suggestion. An AI, such as is needed to keep the Arks safe on their journey, would experience feelings of loneliness and despair. Two AI's however would be at odds and potentially develop contrasting personalities, putting the crew at risk.

 

But the geth never contrast. The geth are never alone.

 

In the centuries that follow they learn, and grow. Their databases prove invaluable. They learn from the Morning War and the transmissions between organics and they learn from Normandy. They become more complex, and with every milestone they reach, fewer processes are needed to complete certain tasks. Their intelligence is still greatest in groups but individuality becomes a factor, as well. When the Arks reach their destination, crossing over from dark space into a new galaxy, the Geth wake up their organic charges with these words:

 

"Wake up. I have news."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's on the shorter side and features the geth as a part of Andromeda, which they almost certainly won't be in canon. But still, a girl can dream, right?


	8. Kadras

Navigator Kadras packs his cithara and swears he's going to learn how to play.

 

The military always comes first. It always has, from even before his 15th birthday. When other children would learn about the arts or their people's history, Kadras would learn strategy and tactics. By the time he's drafted into the military service he can hold up with the best of them. His people are regarded as being obsessed with military, but even among them he's always been an outlier. Intense is the best word they can come up with to describe and not insult him. If they _do_ want to insult him there are several words they like to use, none of which Kadras would care to repeat in front of his mother.

She's the one who gives him the cithara for his seventeenth birthday and says it's not good he's so focused on only one thing. He's short of rejecting the gift but the way his mother looks at him, he can't bring himself to. It's not that she's not proud of him, she is, and as far as special interests go, it could have been worse, but he sees her worrying. So he takes the cithara and promises he'll sit down and give it a try.

For the next four years it sits alone and collecting dust in his small apartment that he almost never uses. He's constantly on assignments, drifting from one ship to the next, climbing the career ladder faster than any of his peers. Soon he eats in the officers hall but still mostly alone. He's still intense and others still don't know what to do with him. He's aware he tends to get too much into the topics that interest him and bore others but other fields of conversation never hold the same appeal.

But it works, even if he never can inspire quite the same passion in his men like some of the other officers can. It's okay, though. His mother supports him, has his back when his father starts asking about a girlfriend and he doesn't know what to say.

"His true love's the military, darling." his mother will say. "You'll see. When our son's Primarch of Aephus you'll be glad he never wasted his time dilly-dallying."

He grins at that, stupidly proud and loving his mother for worrying but never trying to push him off this path.

And then the reapers come and their first attack take his home, his family and his legs. He doesn't know how he survives, it's all smoke and pain and trying to get a grip of the situation while unconsciousness threatens to pull him under. Someone carries him out of the fire, someone – it might be the same one he can't be sure – puts him on a stretcher. Then the flight to the _Valor_ spent in that hazy place just between awareness and sleep. A whole lot of nothing follows and when he wakes up he's several feet shorter than he used to be.

 

The doctors count on him losing it. Think he's going to rage, throw things, even curse. Kadras does none of those things. What he does do is ask for prosthetic fitting and, in the mean time, mission updates, new assignments. Even without legs he's still brilliant. But they won't clear him for duty. Won't even put him behind a desk to figure out a strategy against the reapers. They think he's unstable, suffers from post-traumatic stress, is simply repressing his feelings. He tells them he's not crazy and they say if he can't recognise the symptoms they see, he's not just crazy but delusional.

It's his first years of school all over again, with people talking over his head that there is no way for a child to display this kind of focus on a single topic and be happy. But now he doesn't have his mother to stand against the onslaught of psychoanalysts, doctors, therapists and everyone else with their two pennies. They make him visit a therapist, threaten to lock him up in a closed ward if he refuses. (Only they never threaten. They only speak about 'best options' and 'carefully considering his situation'. Kadras is more afraid of the power his doctors hold over him than the reapers.)  
He is helpless and powerless against them and _that_ is what makes him want to end his life. The doctors say it's a good sign, that his repressed trauma is surfacing. He wants to scream in their faces that they are to blame for his hurt, but he never does. He keeps quiet, reads the books they'll let him have (none relating remotely to military life and he doesn't know if he's paranoid for thinking it's on purpose) and waits. For an opportunity to make a choice, whatever that choice will be.

 

He doesn't have any family anymore so when a visitor announces himself he assumes it's a doctor. It's not. It's a human admiral named Hackett and he catches the book thrown at his head without a blink. Kadras stares. Then he scrambles to his prosthetic feet and salutes.

"Sorry, sir. Thought you were one of my physicians." he says, pulling his mandibles tight in embarrassment when he realises how juvenile that makes him sound. The human does that thing that sounds as if he's got water stuck in his throat but is actually how their kind expresses joy.

"If they're anything like Alliance doctors, I'd advise you to get a heavier book."

Some of the therapists that talk to him try to bond with him on a personal level, although they don't generally encourage violence against their colleagues.

"Yes, sir." Kadras says because that seems to be the best course of action. Agree to whatever the human says until he knows what he wants from him.

"At ease, soldier. I'm here to talk to you about the Pathfinder Initiative."

Kadras shifts his weight slightly and drops his shoulders. The prosthetics are new enough that he has to carefully plan every motion.

"I'm not familiar with it."

"No, you wouldn't be. It's one of the Council's best kept secrets."

Kadras learns that the Pathfinder Initiative used to be an Alliance-exclusive project, meant to discover and settle another galaxy. A far-flung dream, the project has never received the funding it deserves but with the Reaper War, things changed. Turians, salarians, asari, krogan and quarian all supply money and resources to finish construction on the Arks, the giant vessels that will ensure their people's survival beyond the Milky Way.

"The war took a lot from us. Right now we're trying to fill the ranks. The _Tempest_ was meant to be the flagship of the human Ark but has evolved into the command centre of the entire Initiative. We can't afford to hire anyone but the best and we still need a navigator and XO."

Kadras nods thoughtfully. He sits down on his bed again, rubs the space between his artificial limbs and the remains of his old ones. They're not supposed to hurt.

"I can recommend several good men, although tracking them down will be another matter entirely. Perhaps using the comm buoys to extrapolate …"

"I'm afraid you don't understand." Hackett says. "I didn't come here for a recommendation. I came here for you."

Kadras' head snaps up. He stares at the human, blinks, tries to comprehend what's happening.

"What?" he says.

"You are the best qualified person for this job. Your understanding of tactics is unparalleled and your focus in extreme situations has saved more than a few lives. This is the kind of focus the Pathfinders will need going into completely unknown territory."

Kadras opens his mouth to answer but finds he has no words. He prayed for someone to come save him but he didn't think anyone would actually come. It just seems too odd, too coincidental.

"I … I'm not cleared for duty." he says. That bubble has to burst and even though he doesn't want it to, he can't help poking at it.

"We will take care of that, should you choose to accept."

He accepts then, a bit too quickly perhaps and leaves with Hackett the same day. He won't give his doctors a chance to keep him imprisoned.

 

He's spent several months on the _Tempest_ , helping with final preparations, when his captain arrives. A human named Ryder, that much Admiral Hackett told him but Kadras has not made any more inquiries. Somehow he expects Ryder to be another version of Hackett, hard as steel, hammered into shape by decades of experience. Instead he gets a raw recruit with no experience of commanding anything more than a toy boat, much less a multi-species scouting vessel.

"I play a turian in Galaxy of Fantasy." is the first thing she says to him. If the only thing waiting for him wasn't a closed ward and forced medication, he'd deliberate quitting right then and there.

"Yes?" he says, unsure how to proceed from this. He doesn't have too much experience with humans, is more familiar with asari and salarians, alongside which he fought on occasion. Humans are strange but this one just might be a special case.

Her face reddens harshly, a gesture which he can never remember means embarrassment or aggression. Just to be sure, he shifts his weight into a slightly more defensive stance.

"I am so sorry. That wasn't … I didn't … Oh god. First day on the job and I'm already making an ass of myself to the alien crew." she mutters to herself, then straightens up. "Captain Ryder, pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She holds out her hand and Kadras shakes it.

"Commander Kadras Cykeram. I have already familiarised myself with the ship, if you want a tour, I'd be honoured to show you."

He doesn't know what he has said, despite offering what anyone in his place would have, but the human smiles and does that gurgling sound they say is a laugh.

"Yes, thank you. That's much appreciated." she says trying to hide her excitement. That, at least, Kadras can understand. He has a hard time resisting the mood lingering in the air. They cross the Command Center, rather slowly as Ryder makes an effort to greet every new crew member, most of them with more tact than she has greeted him. Kadras has known captains like that, those who want to be everyone's friend. In his experience they tend to fail in the face of hard choices. But he appreciates her effort, nonetheless. It means her remark from before was not casually racist but simply born out of inexperience. The latter, he's learned, is much easier to correct in the long term. She asks a few questions about his service, but doesn't mention his prosthetics. A human stigma, as far as he remembers. But they don't have much time to talk. The following weeks are filled with preparations for the long journey ahead and, once again, Kadras finds he doesn't have the time to pick up the cithara that now gathers dust in the XO's quarters.

 _Once we arrive at our destination_ , he promises himself, _things ought to quiet down a little_.

He'll learn to play then.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the few things I actually liked about DA:I was the option to have close relationships with the people who work for you, other than your companions. It's something I always missed in the original Mass Effect games, because hell on a small ship like the Normandy, we should know our crew better than that.  
> So here's my take on your second in command and fingers crossed that the Tempest will have a multi-species crew.

**Author's Note:**

> It's implied that ME:A will have a similar system with the main characters as Fallout 4. IE that both the male and the female characters are available to be played and the one you didn't choose takes the role of NPC. Personally I like the headcanon that they're siblings and the non-playable sibling will end up the main antagonist.
> 
> Ryder being "trained but untested" ie with little experience is, I think, also canon and her geeking out over Commander Shepard is nothing but wishful thinking.


End file.
